Posted on 07/13/2004 8:55:25 PM PDT by Coleus
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Eighty-eight year old Rose Pale was a devoted parishioner. She attended mass every day. The lawsuit says the monsignor at Saint John The Martyr Church on the Upper East Side betrayed her trust.
The lawsuit says that Monsignor John Wolsey had Pale sign over $495,000 dollars in cash and stocks over three years. He also advised her on her stock portfolio, convincing her to drop her broker of 20 years and use his brokerage firm. All the while, he allegedly told Pale not to tell family and friends.
The suit alleges Wolsey received $100,000 dollars for a Jersey Shore condo. It also says that he took church donations and used them for personal use.
Pale died last year and the executive of her state is trying to recoup some of those funds back into her estate. So far, the archdiocese has no comment.
Excuse me.
It's amazing to me how many of these priests are able to afford beach homes at the Jersey Shore, or in Long Island. This is the fourth priest I can think of, who got into trouble for other reasons, where this info came out about them. In the other cases I'm talking about, the priests molested their victims at their beach homes. So much for those vows of chastity and poverty.
I trust that you shall use some cheap blend for that purpose?
My parents' parish ...
Thank you for putting this story into perspective.
Its primarily conservative Catholics who post these kinds of threads since the homopriest scandal broke, including this one, schmuck! No one on this Forum wants the rot in Christ's Church excised more than us faithful Catholics.
So this "Catholic Ping!"'s for you, chump.
How does modern America manage to produce such theological illiteracy?
An American criminal - from modern America - impersonating a Catholic priest is not an example of "The Catholic Church" doing anything wrong. How banal - all for a condo in Jersey. Good grief!
What about post # 7?
The facts will come out one way or another.
I'll bet we see no "Catholic Ping!"'s on this thread. Another shining moment for the Catholic church."
Catholics ping each other to these articles about deviants in our midst more so than they do to positive ones. You obviously don't come around much.
Msgr. Woolsey is not the only NY area priest to be guilty of such conduct. This is nothing new. However Cardinal Edward (fast eddie) Egan is showing thta he certainly has on big pair of cahones to claim that Woolsey is an "independant contractor". And Donohue should be ashamed of himself. But while other past situations never came to light, at least here the reletives and attorney's had the guts to complain!
Under the religious incorporation laws of the State of New York, a parish is a non profit corporation with a five man board of trustees: President - the Cardinal Archbisop of New York; Vice President - the Vicar General of the Archdiocese; Secretary - the pastor; and two lay trustees nominated by the pastor and approved by the Archbishop. In practise, the secretary of the corporation - the pastor - acts in locus of the Archbishop to operate the worldly corporate/fiscal afairs of the parish
So, while Woolsey may by guilty of malfeasance (along with other crimnal charges), Egan may be guilty of criminal negligence as well as misfeasance.
If these charges can be brought to bear in court, Egan may well be toast!
Independant contractors indeed!!!!!
If Woolsey had built a retreat house, there wouldn't be any issue here.
Diocesan priests don't take vows of poverty, but stuffing a half-million dollars under your rabat for your own use is a shabby thing for a priest to do.
Archbishop Myers of Newark turned a retreat house INTO a second residence for himself, to the tune of $500,000 of diocesan money for the refurbishment.
No vows broken, but it just looks very unseemly for men who are following Him who had nowhere to lay His Head to be living like CEOs.
Lots of priests console themselves for their vow of celibacy by indulging themselves in material things. A Jesuit priest (Fr. Shaughnessy?) wrote a very sharp critique of this behavior, along with a stinging rebuke of priests who break their vow of celibacy. It's been posted here.
It was a Catholic who posted the thread in the first place. Sheesh!
Likely neither of them will be found guilty in a civil trial, much less charged in a criminal trial.
That said, Catholics seem to give Father a pass when it comes to driving new cars, going to the racetrack, eating at Five Star restaurants and vacationing in Europe, because, well, "Father gave up a wife." I've heard people say that.
And, guess what? Few diocesan priests are actually poor, and few act as if they are.
Let's hope it's all a big misunderstanding.
Diocesan priests don't take a vow of poverty.
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